Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival returns Aug 30

If your weekend plans are still open for late August, mark down Sunday, August 30: the 36th Annual Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival is back, and it's landing at Radio/East this time around. For anyone who has spent any time in Austin's food scene, the festival is a familiar fixture, and this year's edition keeps the same formula that has made it a staple: hundreds of gallons of hot sauce, cold drinks, tastings from local restaurants, live music, and activities that won't scare off families. It's presented by Ardalan Injury Law and put on by The Austin Chronicle, the paper that's been covering the city's culture, food, and music for years.

The heart of the day is the Hot Sauce Competition, which crowns a General Champion and a People's Choice winner. You'll find hundreds of sauces from roughly 20 manufacturers based in Central Texas and beyond, so there's a range from mild to genuinely punishing. The confirmed vendor list already runs deep, with names like Barbaro Mojo, Bindu Bites, Boerne Brand, Cowboy Spice Company, Fantastic Fuego, Freaky Ferments, Fxcking Hot Sauces, High Seas Provisions, Hill Country Hot Peppers doing business as Still Fire Provisions, Jaime's Spanish Village, Mad Man Sauces, Old Bones Chilli Co., Savir Foods, Stanky Sauce, T0tsauce, Wicked Provisions Hot Sauce, Goodburn Sauce Co., and Waste Mgmt, and more are expected to be added as the date gets closer.

The venue is worth a note on its own. Radio/East is the second location from the team behind Radio Coffee & Beer, and it's built to carry the day from morning to night: espresso and breakfast tacos early on, cocktails and live music in the evening, with community events and local and touring musicians on the outdoor stage most nights. It's part of the Do512 family of venues, so it's no stranger to a crowd. Tickets are $20 in pre-sale and $25 at the door, and you can grab them at austinchronicle.com.

There's a bigger point to the whole thing, too. The festival is a major fundraiser for the Central Texas Food Bank, the largest hunger-relief nonprofit in Central Texas and a member of Feeding America and Feeding Texas. The food bank supports more than 610,000 food-insecure people every year across a 21-county region that stretches from Bastrop and Bell to Travis and Williamson, and it does so through mobile food pantries, partner agencies, and programs for children and older adults. If you're wondering where your ticket money goes, it's toward that mission, and the organization's local standing is hard to argue with: on June 16, readers of The Austin Chronicle named it Austin's Best Volunteer Experience for the fourth year running. So, whether you're there for the heat or the cause, it's a day that's easy to say yes to.